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are the three things you don’t argue with anyone about as it is an argument you can never, ever, win.

I could tell you in less than five seconds what I know about politics.

Religion? I’m not a fan.

That may be misleading to my Christian friends, but it is true. I have little use for “religion” as the world sees it. I tend to lean more toward the teachings of Jesus than what “religion” has to offer.

But this post isn’t about politics or religion so those of you who just bristled at my comments are off the hook.

It is about coffee.

I love coffee. I drink it several times a day and, contrary to the popular consensus, I use it at night to help me sleep.

Mayhaps it is because I have drank it for so long and have such an affection for it, it soothes me into dreamland.

On more than one occasion when I have been sleepwalking, the evidence of coffee brewing is strewn about the next morning.

If it keeps me in the house on bitter winter nights, I’m all for it. Duct tape doesn’t always work.

And yet, I digress.

I like my coffee strong; strong enough to eat the end of a stainless steel spoon, but I like it light.

Extra light, with real cream.

Milk will do when there isn’t anything else, but real, honest-to-goodness cream is how I prefer it.

A friend told me that I should be ashamed for using cream in my coffee.

I’m not sure if he was offended that the cream came from a cow or that I put calories in a zero calorie drink.

I don’t really care either way.

I can’t drink black coffee.

Ok, I suppose if I were stranded on a desert island with nothing but coffee and water, I would, without doubt, learn to adapt.

But I’m not on a desert island and Food City is on my way home, so you can bet your bottom dollar that there is, at this precise moment, cream in my fridge.

I eat healthy three times a day with at least one healthy snack somewhere between lunch and dinner or dinner and bedtime.

I exercise every day and me and my Pentax hike difficult mountain trails nearly every weekend.

I will put cream in my coffee, dammit.

Real cream.

The hard stuff.

And I will close my eyes and smile like the cat which ate the canary while I do.

Challenge my politics and you will find me a poor opponent … my eyes will roll back in my head and I will retain less than zero percent of the words that come out of your mouth.

I know who the President is and I feel pretty good about that.

Challenge me about religion and I will let you talk until you are blue … it won’t change my belief that I am saved by Grace, have my name written in The Book and religion has little to do with Jesus.

Challenge me about coffee and you will find yourself in a shallow grave covered in decaying leaves while I sit nearby, drinking a stellar cup of java lightened just right with real cream.

That’s just how I roll.

Bring it on.

Were you talking to ME?

Music to be buried by … the clarinet is a fine choice. Just sayin’.

In everything you do, be yourself; nobody else on earth can accomplish that.

I have been in a holding pattern of sleepwalking, nightmares and erotic dreams that leave me confused, wondering and bewildered …

and all the while, trying my very best to make it, without losing my cool, through the seemingly endless days and eventful nights.

I have had patients cry on me, their families strike me, people pulling at my heartstrings which are linked directly to my tear ducts and during all of this, trying to find out if I am to blame for something I had no control over.

I wonder if I have severed a crucial friendship and have already began to mourn the loss of it.

I have a way of ruining beautiful things because I rarely feel worthy of them.

I have slept outside, sent messages I wasn’t aware of and tried desperately to hold it together.

A difficult few days, indeed.

But tonight changed all that.

It came a storm.

A big one, with lots of lightning and torrential rain.

Normally, during such an event, I would be set up on the porch with my tripod and camera, but this time was different.

This one wasn’t to be documented and photographed.

It was to set my spirit free.

And it did.

I stood on the porch with my jeans and t-shirt, getting soaked.

But as time passed, I wanted no earthly barriers between me and the blessing that God was giving me.

A cleansing.

A fresh beginning.

Letting the past be past and bygones be bygones and memories no more than a blip on my radar.

One piece of clothing after another was discarded until I found myself standing nude and vulnerable under the rain, with the lightning flashing, the thunder bellowing, echoing between the mountains and valleys …

tears running down my face.

I prayed to a God that I had decided had forgotten me.

He hadn’t.

I think He was just waiting for me to remember Him.

It was frightening.

It was freeing.

I was liberated from the hold this world had on me.

I was, for that span of time, one with nature and the God who created it.

I still struggle with the emotions and thoughts in my head, but He designed my brain and is well acquainted with my mindless and sometimes senseless ramblings.

He doesn’t hold them against me and so I won’t hold them against myself.

Not everyone believes in my God. I don’t find fault with them. I know what I know, they know what they know.

I can only be who I am and, despite all my faults, and they are many, I feel at peace.

I was so disappointed this morning when I woke up to realize it was only Thursday.

I fell asleep on the couch last night and woke up just in time to get in bed before nine-thirty.

My body was convinced I was dead since I haven’t been in bed before midnight in months.

But I wasn’t dead … just exhausted.

And it isn’t even a full moon.

The Harvest Moon comes in September.

God help us all.

I have sleptwalked (is that even a word? I don’t think so, but I’m past worrying about vernacular correctness), twice this week and once, spent some time (how much time is still undetermined) sleeping in my back yard … not camping, as in sleeping bag, campfire, guitar player, roasting marshmallows, but …

On.

The.

Ground.

With the spiders and other things that creep in the night.

Never, I heartily assure you, is it a good feeling to wake up outside when you started out inside and then wonder how you actually made it to the yard without falling off the porch and breaking half the bones in your body.

I am, it seems, fairly agile in my sleep and maneuver as well or better as when I am awake.

I now have nightmares about my nightmares.

Scary.

And then …

I hit a deer on the way to work yesterday and in doing so, messed up my car enough to put it, for the moment, out of commission.

The deer, other than a probable bald spot (this deduction coming from the amount of deer hair on my car), seemed no worse for the wear.

It is the first time, ever, that I have hit a deer. It made me cry right before it made me puke.

Never mind that the deer jumped up, looked directly at me as though cursing me to hell and back then bounded over a fence, I was physically ill.

Twice.

The September raptor migration along the spine of Clinch Mountain is coming up and I need my convertible to completely enjoy the experience of driving up the mountain.

Top down.

Wind in my face.

Sun on my skin.

These are things that are of utmost importance to me.

My weekend warriorness (again, not a real work, but whatever) kicks into gear once Autumn gets here. Five A.M. never seems quite so early on Autumn Saturdays as it does when I get up during the week to go to work.

Go figure.

Two of my sweet little patients have passed away. It takes me about two minutes to fall in love with them.

I have said before I am too softhearted to be a nurse and yet … well, here I am.

I haven’t taken a photograph in over a week. Not because there hasn’t been anything to photograph, for each day offers something magnificent, but because …

I don’t even know. I don’t have a good excuse.

I am too tired to even try to come up with an excuse. Judging from the posts and messages from facebook friends and tweeps, I’m not the only one feeling the weariness.

It’s been a busy, busy, busy … well, you get the picture, week.

Ok, let’s be real here, a busy month.

My teacher family and friends are wishing they were, even now, at retirement age.

Talk about wishing your life away.

But even though I am exhausted, I am thankful.

I am more thankful than I am tired and that makes up for all the other stuff.

My niece Gracie came over for a visit today and the very first order of business for her was to turn on the TV. She turned it on by the power button on the set (what a concept) and there was nothing but static.

She said “fix it Nini”. And I stood there, dumbfounded, because I couldn’t fix it.

In order to fix it, I would need the remote and I haven’t seen that particular piece of equipment in weeks.

Or maybe months, I’m not certain.

She frowned at me as though I had popped her brand new balloon with a needle.

But what was I to do?

I don’t know where it is. I have looked for it so I could watch “Lord of the Dance”, “The Fugitive” and “Wolf”.

I haven’t found it, but I have, most diligently, looked for it.

Mayhaps the elusive mouse that I have been trying to catch carried it off.

I have looked everywhere, even in places that I am certain, without a shred of doubt, that it could not possibly be because who really knows what goes on when I sleepwalk?

But I looked anyway just to satisfy my own curiosity.

It has simply disappeared.

I haven’t had the TV on in months and have had no need of the remote. That doesn’t justify its disappearance. It didn’t simply evaporate.

Or maybe it did. What do I know?

So instead of the TV, I subjected her to my current obsession with John Cougar. She didn’t seem to mind, not overmuch anyway, but every now and then, she would look at me and shake her head.